We need state help for our water and sewer system. I live in Southwest Baltimore, Saint Agnes Violetville neighborhood. Six of the twelve rowhomes on my block flooded with sewage during the last rainstorm. My home and the others that didn’t flood are only safe because we got grants from the old neighborhood association to install special valves and pumps. Vacant homes on the next block also have sewage in the basements, and homeless people squatting in them. We’ve had no help from the city for two or three years, the squatters have open sores I’m sure are worse from contact with sewage, the area smells horrible when it’s warm, sometimes you can see “floatables” like human feces and wet toilet paper in the alley after rainstorms. No sane person would buy a home here or make a business investment. We need the state to take over to push the fixes for the water and sewer system, the city DPW and city council aren’t doing anything that I can see. I’ve written to Governor Moore asking for help.

The circuit courthouse has lactation rooms, my daughter used the room when she had jury duty, she said it was a standard room with a recliner and refrigerator, she took her cooler bag instead of leaving her milk unattended. You can call to reserve a room for when you have jury duty.

I’m not an attorney, I was a crime victim and my daughter was a victim, I work with victims of violent assault who need physical therapy and have knowledge of their cases.

Our attorney told us in Maryland crime victims have the right to be informed of any action or proceeding that affects the interest of the victim, or victim’s family, guardian, heirs. That includes bail hearings, when the prosecutors stet the charges, dismissing cases.

Ms. Mosby’s prosecutors are known to do this to victims, not notify them before they dismiss cases or stet charges, not notify of bail hearings.

This is a link to a know your rights list for victims. Ms. Mosby’s prosecutors violated most of these in cases I experienced.

Anecdotally I was at hearing with a patient four years ago, the prosecutor announced she was dismissing the case, the judge asked the victim if she was informed about the dismissal before the hearing. The victim wasn’t information so the judge the scolded the prosecutor and did not let her dismiss the case.

https://www.umaryland.edu/roar/know-your-rights/

I second Hot Pot King at the Hub and Kpot, both in Catonsville. I haven’t found a hot pot place within city limits that I like.

Delegate Szelega from Baltimore County has been speaking out about the plan since last week. I wrote to the city council rep for my area, the mayor and my state delegate, no one responded. I’m disappointed we have get help from county delegates before the city officials act.

https://www.wbal.com/article/607878/3/del-szeliga-speaks-out-against-contaminated-water-being-cleaned-in-baltimore

People will gate-keep the Baltimorean status. I was born and raised here in the city, I raised my children here, now my grandchildren live in Howard County and I show them around my city when they visit. 59 years of being a city resident, working with city victims, going to city schools, volunteering for city churches some people tell me I’m not Baltimore enough, or not really from West Baltimore. It’s a weakness people have when they have nothing else against you. People moved into my neighborhood in the last five years, they tell those of us who live here that we’re the ones who aren’t Baltimore enough or don’t understand city living. If you look at the people leading the city most aren’t from here, only Mayor Scott is from Baltimore and he’s not doing a good job right now.

The city needs fresh young minds and fresh ideas. Anyone who says you aren’t Baltimore enough is only gatekeeping because they have nothing better to say. Keep you head up and keep trying to experience the city, maybe one day you will be the person to really help the city.

Two delegates from Baltimore County Szelega and Nawrocki are pushing back. I wrote to my delegate, Mayor Scott and Governor Moore, I haven’t heard back yet. I plan to write to the Baltimore County delegates tomorrow to thank them and encourage them to keep pushing back. It’s a shame our own city delegates aren’t helping residents with this.

I have friends in Brooklyn who’s children suffer from asthma. I often wonder if it’s from the chemical rain and discharge from the incinerator.

I’m in the Saint Agnes Violetville area. We have frequent problems with raw sewage leaks into our yards, homes and the street. Recently large trucks are dumping in the grassy areas and along side the woods. The residential roads aren’t made for large trucks, now we have multiple water main leaks, I worry about cross contamination from the sewage leaks.

Years ago our neighborhood group organized against having the CSX traffic in our neighborhood, the company wanted to use the residential streets to move rail cargo by truck to the next stop. We all worked together to stop it. Now we don’t have a unified neighborhood group, only a group of friends of councilwoman Porter who seem more interested in running for different elected positions than helping the neighborhood. A few years ago Clean Water Action and Blue Water Baltimore took some interest in the sewage problems but they disappeared. It’s sad to see how fast the environmental damage happens under bad leadership.

That’s an interesting idea of Guinness suing the city for clean water, that would help all of us.

Baltimore City sidewalks fail ADA requirements, a group of disabled residents had to file a lawsuit to get the city to repair the sidewalks, only a small portion of the sidewalks have been repaired so far.

I’m a physical therapist, most of my patients are in what’s called the Black Butterfly, lower income areas of the city. The sidewalks there are unusable by wheelchair or other mobility device users. The city inspectors don’t enforce the ADA requirements on the smaller businesses, stores, restaurants.

The area around JHU is in better shape, still not completely accessible due to uneven and broken sidewalks that have not been repaired yet.

The state offers a supplemental public transit service for certified disabled users. The service is helpful but not reliable, my patients report delays and no show problems. Not all standard buses have working ramps. If you can find living space very close to campus you’d be better off.

There is a large, very welcoming disabled community in Baltimore. You will find a lot of support here. I’m not on Facebook, I’ve heard there are accessibility groups on Facebook that could help with finding housing.

https://www.mta.maryland.gov/mobility

https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-disability-class-action-lawsuit-20210616-fskw36o4xvarhbrzfbmdpnmu2e-story.html

I’m afraid more people will get ill, more property will be damaged and the city won’t take any responsibility or help people.

In my neighborhood the untreated sewage backs up into buildings, homes after rainstorms. The city only helps a small bit, that’s after multiple families from my neighborhood fought for help for years. I had my house fixed with grant money from the neighborhood group but I can’t sell for a fair price because two houses up is a vacant house. The city allows the sewage to sit in the vacant houses until it flows out the basement windows. I have concerns city leadership that allows this will allow other unexpected damages to people and our homes, our health.

Those are good questions about what chemicals need to be removed and how they will do that.

I hope the state will have an open forum before they move forward for people to hear the answers. I’m glad the Baltimore County delegates are trying to stop it until more information is available n

Also if you don’t live in the city or by the water this may not effect you so it wouldn’t make sense for you to write to the governor and delegates. My post is for people who live near the water in Baltimore and by the bay and don’t want this in the water.

“Human waste” is feces, I’m sorry I don’t how to explain simpler for you. The reports have a lot of technical words that were difficult for me too, I work in healthcare so I had to look up some of the terms. Where the reports say millions of gallons of black solids and partially treated human waste was discharged into the tributaries it means feces dumped into the river where it leads to the bay.

I don’t believe you’ve read the reports fully. The treatment plant isn’t operating the way it should. People are worried adding more waste will cause problems

>>The reports found plant employees exhibited an “open unwillingness to comply” and “bad behavior.

>> The MES team observed not just “open unwillingness to cooperate,” but also “animosity. . . between the maintenance and operation groups.” “Negative behaviors – ranging from sleeping on the job to verbal/physical altercations between employees – have been observed on both the supervisory and subordinate level,”

>> City staff were seen “washing personal vehicles during the workday and have admitted to receiving payment or free lunch for services provided,” according to the report by the quasi-public agency, assigned by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE)

>> there have been daily illegal discharges of millions of gallons of partially treated human waste for more than a year into tributaries of the Bay.

The treatment plant wasn’t operating correctly, they were dumping solid sewage matter into the river. The state said there were “systemic problems and failures at every level”. The state had to take over, it was so bad the state is still working on the fixes. The man who was in charge resigned from DPW a week ago, the next day there was explosion there. The Baltimore Sun and Baltimore Brew are doing a good job reporting the problems.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/environment/bs-md-back-river-mes-report-20220609-kadheruyindq5e2f3o4irsozhu-story.html

https://www.wypr.org/wypr-news/2022-09-22/maryland-lawmakers-peek-inside-the-troubled-back-river-wastewater-treatment-plant

https://www.dundalkeagle.com/news/local/mes-oversight-at-back-river-wastewater-treatment-plant-extended-through-april-30/article_24986302-b419-5592-8c31-1ed363770f6b.html

The title of the article is similar to the other articles, this article from today has the update that Delegates Nawrocki and Szelega are fighting for us to not receive the waste.

I contacted my representatives and city council person without any responses. I also wrote an email to the governor and received an automated response.

Two republican delegates from the Baltimore County areas are fighting this Ohio wastewater decision. Delegates Nawrocki and Szelega are fighting to have the Ohio waste not come to Maryland, or to wait until more information is available. Those two delegates are from Baltimore County I believe.

My neighbors and I are very worried about this. Our area in Southwest Baltimore had more flooding and sewage leaks in the last two years than I experienced before. Our street is flooded today from both a vacant home pumping our sewer water and the storm drains not draining, blocked. The area is not being maintained, the water and waste infrastructure is deteriorating. These are health concerns for us. If you have concerns please think about writing to your representative and to these two delegates in Baltimore County about stopping the Ohio waste until we can be sure it will be processed correctly.

I wonder if there are too many vacancies in the arborist department, maybe no one works there anymore. A tree fell on my street last year, we reported it as leaning, in need of pruning back in 2020. It’s been lying on the ground for at least eight months since it fell in the storm. I called 311, my neighbors called 311. One young man cut the larger part of the trunk so it doesn’t block the road but the base still sits on the sidewalk and grassy area where it fell.

Yes! I was reading in the article the other user posted. They are invasive, birds and deer spread them.

The wooded area around Maiden Choice run has many Bradford Pear crowding out the other trees, now I know how they got there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/baltimore/comments/11zy239/what_are_the_trees_with_white_flowers_blooming/jdfg8pk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3

Thank you. That makes more sense than what others wrote. It’s a stinky tree, residents should be able to have them removed and replaced with native trees.

I don’t believe this is true, even the city tree teams said the Bradford pears live twenty five years at most. I hope the city is getting better as they learn more.

The city planted the ones on my street about twenty years ago, not so distant past. It wasn’t developers or flippers. My husband and I, and all my neighbors at the time objected, it was well known even then that Bradford pears were smelly weak trees but the city crews planted them anyway, then refused to care for or prune them. I remember it well, it wasn’t developers or flippers, this was a nice street full of homeowners back then. Eddie Reisinger was a new councilman, he promised to have the trees removed before the smell got too bad then we never heard from the city tree teams again. The tree in front of my house partially fell, raising up the sidewalk and breaking the plumbing lines. That’s when we had it removed.

The city and a non profit did the same thing across Wilkens Avenue last year. People had the street trees removed just like I did and they put smaller native trees in their backyards, then the city crew came through with the non profit and planted more street trees.

In this area the space between the sidewalk and the street is very narrow, twenty inches, maybe a little more. It’s not big enough for healthy tall trees, anything bigger than a small redbud becomes weak and falls on the cars or people, or damages the plumbing lines. I don’t know why the city won’t develop a better program. It’s sad going to neighborhood meetings and hearing the same complaints twenty years later, no improvement, same excuses. The city doesn’t listen to residents.

I’m glad the city isn’t still planting these Bradford pears this year, the ones on my street were definitely planted by the city.

These trees are not hardy, they’re cheap to buy and plant. The Bradford pear trees drop branches anytime it gets windy. I paid an arborist to remove the one on front of my house years ago because it dropped large, ten in diameter branches on my car. I always worried a branch would fall on someone.

We replaced them with redbuds in our backyards, much prettier pinkish red blooms and no dropped branches. I don’t believe the city does a good job with their tree programs.

I have two patients who were in an accident at that pothole. It’s a very deep, very dangerous hole, I’d call it a sinkhole. Their car isn’t driveable, they have months of pt ahead of them.

I hope you can get this fixed, the area around Caton Avenue, Patapsco Avenue, Wilkens Avenue and Benson Avenue is deteriorating fast because of all the heavy trucks driving through. I won’t drive down that way. I heard at a neighborhood meeting we won’t get any help, support for having the road resurfaced because that would require the road to be closed for hours or maybe more, the truck companies now take priority because they donated to Ms. Porter the new councilwoman and her friend who runs the Village of Violetville.

I remember when Benson Avenue was resurfaced last time, I still worked in the medical office building there. We had a little grand opening festival, they kept the road closed for a day after it was completed so children could ride their bikes and skateboards. I can see how truck companies would be upset at the road closed for a day or two, we need safe roads more than we need whatever jobs the truck companies may have. I don’t know anyone who works for those companies, I know many people who were injured or had car damage from the bad roads.

Giant on Wilkens Avenue, High’s on Maiden Choice Road and UPS on Vero Road are hiring. These are in Southwest Baltimore near bus stops.